


Strawberries and Cigarettes

by profanesouls



Category: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Pining, Two Fledglings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:15:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28455207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/profanesouls/pseuds/profanesouls
Summary: She felt overcome with — with something. Something she couldn’t quite place, a feeling she wasn’t sure she was capable of. Something akin to tenderness, a softness whose origins were unknown. Maybe it came from this shared similarity between them: two survivors, thrust into a strange world, trying to survive by the skin of their teeth. Partners in death despite their obvious differences. An odd combination, like strawberries and cigarettes.In a different life, Mickey wondered if their paths would have even crossed at all.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Strawberries and Cigarettes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cloakofshadows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloakofshadows/gifts).



Curiosity came to Mickey as she sat at the semi-crowded bar of Confession, the bass from the music thumping against her chest like a heartbeat, dressed in pink silk and perfectly styled blonde hair. 

She’d been preoccupied with one of the nearby dancers when she heard the sound of Varya’s melodic voice. 

“Mickey!” 

Her feline gaze was torn away from the dancer, blinking at the sight of the pastel-clad Toreador walking toward her with a signature confidence. Varya looked out of place among the gothic décor of Confession, but even standing under the red illumination of the overhead lights, Varya still managed to look stunning. Her lips, painted a lovely shade of pink, were pulled back in a smile so bright Mickey found herself struggling not to return it. 

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Varya said, plopping down next to Mickey on the adjacent barstool. From across the bar, Venus met her gaze and winked, but otherwise turned her attention to more demanding patrons. The night was still young — both secrets and drinks were to be spilled until dawn. 

“Well, here I am,” Mickey replied, her words punctuated with her usual flair of deadpan snark. Unlike Varya, with her ruffles and lace, Mickey fit right in with Confession’s usual clientele. Besides, she liked it here. It was a place she could be anonymous — well,  _ mostly _ anonymous. It was easy for Mickey to just lose herself on the dance floor, surrounded by strangers who didn’t want anything from her, until the early hours of the morning where she could return home and collapse into the oblivion of day-sleep. It was the perfect avoidance. 

And she had been avoiding a lot of shit lately. 

“Well,” Varya began, dragging out the word for a little dramatic effect, “is there a reason you are sitting in this club all alone? And pouting?” 

Mickey scowled, her hackles automatically raising in self-defense, “I’m not pouting.” 

Varya fixed Mickey with a pointed look, “You are too! See, look, when you frown you get this, like, little furrow in between your eyebrows, it’s adorable! A total dead giveaway, though, just so you know.” 

Despite how much Mickey tried to force her face to remain neutral, her frown only deepened, along with the furrow in her brow. 

A giggle bubbled out of Varya’s mouth before she could bite it back, “Ah, see! There it is again!” 

“What do you want, Varya?” The words raced out of Mickey with an underlying venom. It wasn’t intentional, per say, but when she was trying to hide, she didn’t appreciate being found. 

(She also didn’t appreciate the fact that Varya was so good at reading her, but she tried not to think about it too much.) 

“Oh, well, I wanted to check up on you, that’s all,” the Toreador explained, her manicured fingers tap-tap-tapping against the bar. “Because, you know, LaCroix wanted us to go to the Elizabeth Dane, and —” 

“Since when do you care about what LaCroix wants?” Mickey interjected, an eyebrow arched. 

“Well, I mean, we have to go at some point, right? He made it pretty clear.” 

A low growl rumbled in Mickey’s chest, “that’s a fuckin’ understatement.” 

LaCroix had assigned the pair of them to investigate the Elizabeth Dane, a cargo freighter that was supposed to bring the Ankaran Sarcophagus safely to Los Angeles — which was exactly why LaCroix wanted it so badly. The thought of snooping around a ship that showed signs of a violent struggle, as well as an unaccounted for crew, left Mickey feeling uneasy. 

She wasn’t eager to hop on a ghost ship after the fiasco at the Ocean House Hotel, either. 

“The sooner we go, the sooner it can be over, Mickey,” Varya pleaded, breaking Mickey out of her reverie. 

Mickey’s stubbornness kept her rooted to her chair. As she glanced at Varya from underneath her lashes, the softness in her expression left a feeling of warmth curling in her gut. A sudden question sprang in her mind at the sensation, and she blurted out, “how did you know I was here?” 

A coy smile tugged at Varya’s lips (her lips that Mickey found herself staring at periodically while she talked) and she lifted her elegant shoulders in a shrug, “lucky guess?” 

It was Mickey’s turn to fix Varya with a pointed look. 

“Okay, fine! Well, you haven’t really been hanging out at the Last Round a lot lately, but I went there and asked, and Damsel and Nines said they hadn’t seen you in awhile,” she explained, leaning closer to Mickey so that she could hear her over the loud music, “and I know you liked hanging out at the Asylum a lot when we were in Santa Monica, so I figured this would be a good place to start!” 

It was startling, Mickey realized, just how much Varya knew about her. Not specifics, mind you, none of the secrets she kept close to her chest, or the emotions she kept locked behind her walls where no one but her could get them. Little things, like the kind of clubs she liked to loiter in, the way she could sense the shift in Mickey’s mood. Should have unnerved her, the way Varya just knew her, should have sent her running. 

But it didn’t and Mickey didn’t understand why. 

“Speaking of,” Varya continued, oblivious to Mickey’s internal conflict, “is there a particular reason why no one has seen you at the Last Round lately?” 

Varya was looking at Mickey with a glimmer in her eye, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, like she had a secret she was waiting for the perfect moment to share. Mickey found her hackles rising again in defense, her eyes narrowing slightly. 

“No reason,” Mickey tried to deflect, her fingers combing through her hair, “been busy.” 

“Busy,” Varya mimicked, that glimmer in her eye taking on a mischievous shine. 

“Yeah, busy.” 

“Doing what?”

“Answering your endless questions.” 

Now it was Varya’s turn to pout. 

Mickey attempted to stifle a groan. Her hands clenched and unclenched into fists. The walls of Confession were starting to feel suffocating. Pinned in place by Varya’s inquisitive stare, her innocuous curiosity prodding Mickey in places she wasn’t ready to confront. It was cowardly, Mickey knew that deep down, but that wasn’t enough to stop her from running. She always kept people at an arm’s length away, but that was getting tougher and tougher the longer she spent in Los Angeles. 

It was getting tougher and tougher due to her current company, too. 

“I’m sorry,” Mickey grumbled, the apology rough but genuine. 

“It’s okay,” Varya said, that pout disappearing as quickly as it came. “Seriously, though, you can tell me, Mickey.” 

Another frown pulled at the corners of Mickey’s mouth, this one she decided not to try and hide. There was a reason why she was avoiding the Last Round — and one of its occupants, specifically — but she wasn’t ready to face the reasons why. Not when she was perfectly comfortable in her avoidance, but she knew she couldn’t avoid him much longer, not when she had questions and he had answers. 

“It’s complicated,” was all Mickey was able to muster, her words and emotions getting jumbled somewhere in the back of her throat. 

As Mickey looked at Varya again, she felt overcome with — with something. Something she couldn’t quite place, a feeling she wasn’t sure she was capable of. Something akin to tenderness, a softness whose origins were unknown. Maybe it came from this shared similarity between them: two survivors, thrust into a strange world, trying to survive by the skin of their teeth. Partners in death despite their obvious differences. An odd combination, like strawberries and cigarettes. 

In a different life, Mickey wondered if their paths would have even crossed at all. It was hard to imagine someone like Varya giving Mickey the time of day if they hadn’t met the way they did. Polar opposites, yet somehow, they worked together. 

That warm feeling from earlier spread across Mickey’s chest again. 

“Mickey?” 

Broken from another reverie, Mickey blinked. She realized, a little too late, that Varya had been pinned under the intensity of her stare. A sheepish smile tugged at the corners of her mouth and she huffed out a laugh. 

“Sorry,” she apologized again, “what’d you say?” 

“I said — well, I  _ asked  _ — why was it complicated? Is it about Nines? Because I am sure if you just asked him, he would —” 

“I don’t wanna talk about Nines,” Mickey interrupted, smothering the conversation before it breached topics Mickey didn’t want to discuss. Her feelings about the Anarch leader were, for lack of a better word, complicated, and she really didn’t want to discuss them with Varya. Not when Mickey was still looking at her with that foreign expression tenderness, not when she found herself angling her body toward Varya’s. 

Before Varya could respond, Mickey reached for her hand and laced their fingers together. She got up from the barstool and pulled Varya toward the dance floor, “dance with me.” 

It was less of a question, more of a demand, but her grip was loose enough if Varya wanted to decline. Mickey’s lips pulled into a wider grin, though, when Varya followed her to the dance floor, her hand still clasped firmly in hers. 

The light from the dance floor illuminated the pair of Kindred in shades of red, the music making it impossible to talk, which is exactly how Mickey liked it. Warm bodies pressed around them, allowing the vampires the illusion of life. They could close their eyes and pretend that their hearts still beat, that the blood in their veins didn’t carry a curse, that they weren’t just sad creatures trying to keep their bestial nature on a firm leash. 

Mickey found herself getting lost in the music, lost in the sensation of Varya’s touch. This was as close as they’d ever been. Mickey reached for Varya, her hands on her hips as they swayed to the music. Her eyes were locked on Varya’s, who was looking down at her with a coy smile. 

An elbow jammed into Mickey’s back, the momentum causing her to stand flush against Varya’s lithe frame. The startling closeness, the expression in Varya’s face — the softness around the edge’s of her eyes, the upturned corners of her perfectly shaped mouth, the feeling of her hands holding Mickey steady — spurred Mickey upward to the tips of her toes as she captured Varya’s lips in a searing kiss. 

A quiet, startled  _ oof! _ from Varya was muffled against Mickey’s mouth. It caused her to pull back slightly, another apology already resting against her tongue, but she didn’t get far as Varya reconnected their lips together. Varya’s lips were soft against Mickey’s — it wasn’t an intense kiss, there was no fiery passion, no furious clashing of tongues and teeth — but it was sweet. A sweetness Mickey wasn’t used to, a sweetness she wasn’t sure she deserved. Mickey could taste the flavor of lip gloss that coated her pretty, pink lips; strawberries. 

When Mickey pulled back again, there was no carefully placed mask on her face. Her expression was genuine. With Varya, there was a safeness that allowed her to be vulnerable, if only for a little bit. A smile pulled at Mickey’s mouth as she pulled Varya closer, still dancing, her hips swaying to the music. Her back was pressed against Varya’s chest, Varya’s hands on her waist. 

Varya’s mouth was at her ear as she said, “we should do this more often!”

Mickey arched a brow as she looked back at Varya, her smile turning slightly more predatory, “what, kissing?” 

Varya pinched her, “no, silly, dancing! It is not what I am used to, but I like dancing with you.” 

Mickey was glad Varya couldn’t see her face, so she couldn’t see the way her eyes brightened as that feline grin turned fond. 

Lost in the heat of bodies on the dance floor, Mickey had no care in the world. The night raged outside Confession’s doors, full of monsters and schemes. Eventually, she and Varya would have to rejoin the night — it was inevitable that the pawns would have to return to the board. For now, though, she was comfortable being anonymous. Well, almost anonymous. With Varya’s body pressed against hers, their bodies synchronized as they danced until the early morning hours. Vampire politics would have to wait and LaCroix could go without his precious little sarcophagus for another night or two. 

All Mickey cared about, at this moment, was this closeness, this softness, this tenderness, that she shared with Varya, the only person who knew exactly what she was going through. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading my work! this fic is a birthday gift to my wonderful girlfriend, who the lovely varya belongs to! i hope you have a wonderful birthday, and thank you for creating a wonderful character like varya, who i love as though she were my own child(e). if you enjoyed reading this, please leave me a kudos or a comment letting me know what you thought! 💕


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